In a futile attempt to shift
a well known responsibility, Mr. Reihle (letters to Daytona Beach News
Journal, 12/21) accuses Europeans, the News-Journal and everyone else of
the increasing anti-American sentiment that pervades the world, while he
purposely ignore or tries to mask a mountain of evidence that have
created and supports this malady. Some supporting evidence:

a) The forceful occupation by the United States government of 40
square miles of Cuban territory for the past 100 years against the will
of its people and the construction of a Naval Base on the world’s
fifth best natural bay, "leased" in perpetuity for $4000.00 a
year, has attracted lots of unneccesary anger.

b) The arbitrary witholding for the past 38 years of the retirement
benefits of thousands of former US Naval Base employees, who contributed
more than 80,000 years of loyal service, only because they refused to
abandon their families in Cuba and migrate to the United States.

c) The impending threat against Cuban-American citizens and
Cuban-American permanent residents, who are allowed legally to visit
their families in Cuba once a year and send no more than $100.00 a
month: they may see these prerrogatives further curtailed by allowing
only citizens to visit their loved ones, not green card holders.

d) Although the United States is "theoretically" against
terrorisms, highjackings, illegal immigrations and kidnappings, none of
this applies to people coming out of Cuba, who in so doing may injure,
main or kill and yet are received in Miami as celebrities with open
arms.

Aren’t these and other misguided decisions the root cause of many
anti-American ill feelings and unrest around the world?

May our leaders grow up, admit to past mistakes, rectify, and pave
the way to a more peaceful and loving world.

In the summer of 1980 and as part of the Mariel boatlift, myself and
hundreds of other Afro-Cubans and tens of thousands of Cubans from other
ethnic groups, landed illegally at the US Naval Base in Key West,
Florida, where we were registered, provided with an I-94 document that
entitled us to work and healthcare benefits, dined, lodged and flown
free of charge to different States around the country, to be further
relocated.

The spectacle coming out of Miami yesterday, in which over 200
Haitians attempted to enter illegally into the State of Florida, brought
to mind a stark contrast with now and then. Multiple factors, including
political clout, ideology, race and prejudice have been presented as the
cause of such a brutal disparity.

Whichever the argument, being Black and coming from the city of
Guantanamo in Cuba, 70 miles west of Haiti, it is very easy for me to
picture myself jumping off that boat, being rounded up and hauled off to jail,
even though the motives for the Haitians now and myself then are maybe the
same.

Contrary to Haitians and citizens of other Latin American countries,
as of 1959 with the advent of the Cuban Revolution, the Government of
the United States through the Department of State, Department of
Defense, CIA and many other institutions, created an endless list of
actions designed to destabilize and overthrow the Cuban government.

Swimming across Guantanamo bay into the Naval Base or jumping over
its chain link fence, ramming vehicles through embassy gates, maritime
and airline highjackings, kidnappings and bribes, are only some of the
multi-prong program that was put in place by the United States
Government and broadcasted into Cuba on a daily basis, through the Voice
of America, Radio Swam, the Armed Forces Radio Station (WGBY), White
Papers, Pastoral Letters and all other conceivable means of enticing
Cubans to emigrate to the United States.

Tens of thousands of Cubans accepted this "humanitarian
project" and received, especially those arriving in the early 60s,
substantial moral and material support, that enabled them to achieve
leading professional, administrative and politic al control of South
Florida. Contrary to what we have been made to believe, this achievement
was not the result of a spontaneous generation, but rather, a well
orchestrated program in detriment of the local African American
community.

But if all of the above anti-Cuba measures are abhorent, the most
despicable ones were the "Peter Pan" program by which over
14,000 children under the age of 17 were lured out of the country
without their parents and sent to distant communities where they knew
nobody. Some had to wait five or more years to be reunited with their
parents, other never did. Many suffered physical, mental and/or sexual
abuse.

The Cuban Adjustment Act of 1964, -which remains in place today-, is
the centerpiece of this deranged and brutal policy, that have caused
indirectly the death of thousands of innocent people in the straits of
Florida, lured to our shores by the magnet of materialism, consumerism,
wealth and happiness, irrespective of the means, cause or effect
employed in arriving in the United States.

This massive coordinated plan to inflict pain and suffering on
everyone living in Cuba, respects no human values, moral principles or
religious tenet. Thousands of loyal ex-employees of the United States
Naval Base in Guantanamo, Cuba, who faithfully provided over 80,000
years of labor before, during and after every military conflict in which
the Department of Defense of the United States Government was engaged
in, are now hungry, sick, bitter, or dead, because our Government
decided unilaterally, to withhold their pension money for the past
thirty eight years.

How meaningless can all those rhetorical recitations of Human Rights,
Family Values and other principles, sound to hundreds of ex-employees of
the US Naval Base in Cuba, who have been forced to break up their
families and migrate to neighboring islands, where they immediately
receive their monies from the US Treasury Department, that was
previously sanctioned by the US State Department, which they then
forward to their families living in Cuba?

Are these and other abominable governmental behavior ever discussed
in the Human Rights Commission in Geneva or New York?

Had we not politicized our immigration laws by granting Cubans
preferential entry and residency prerogatives in order to use this as a
destabilization weapon against that country, by creating mass hysteria
and inciting the commission of crimes in order to achieve the end goal,
we would not find ourselves now attempting to explain the difference
between two similar socio-economic effects.

Rescind immediately the Cuban Adjustment Act, save hundreds of lives
and live up to the US-CUBA bilateral migratory agreement!

One year ago, we saw on the evening news, an irate
Senator Robert Torricelli vehemently denying published accusations of
wrongdoings and promising a fight to the end, to defend his impeccable
political career and deep moral values.

Last week, a tearful, meek and demoralized Torricelli was again on
TV, this time slightly admitting his deeds which he described as
"human mistakes" and immediately accusing everyone else of
being unforgiving.

As a New York city resident in the mid 80s, I remember this young man
emerging on the New Jersey political arena, introducing a brash,
tongue-lashing, moralizing agenda, that was supposed to disinfect and
resurrect the decaying political establishment of that region.

As any other typical opportunist, he jumped on every
"politically correct" issue in order to enhance his standing
in the community. And so he became a staunch enemy of Cuba and the point
man in Washington for the Cuban American National Foundation and tens of
others ultra-right-wing Cuban American bellicose groups based in south
Florida.

For most Cubans, it was difficult to understand the sudden love,
commitment and concerns that this individual expressed for a land with
which he had no historical or filial links. He was cheered wildly by
intransigent Cuban-Americans, raised to near sainthood and inducted into
the hall of fame of such notables anti-Cuba warriors as US Senator Helms
and Burton, US Congressman Diaz-Balart, Ross-Lethinen, our
Cuban-American Florida Congressional delegation and another hundred
organizations based in south Florida, California and New Jersey, that
have terrorized the Cuban people for the past 40 years.

In 1992, Mr. Torricelli accomplished his highest goal in Congress,
when he wrote his political PhD dissertation known as the Torricelli
Act. With the stroke of a pen, this universally accepted crook,
presented and was later approved by the US Government, the most
stringent amendment ever to the 30 year old embargo against Cuba.

The centerpiece of this law prohibited all United States company
subsidiaries around the world, to sell any of its products to Cuba or to
purchase any product or raw material that contained 10% or more of
anything produced in Cuba. Any freighter entering Cuban ports, could not
enter any United States port for the next 180 days.

If we were to add to the inherent cruelty of this law, the fact that
this measure was introduced shortly after the collapse of the Soviet
Union and the other eastern blocks countries with which Cuba traded and
had lost 75% of its market overnight, clearly describes his vicious
intent to inflict pain on innocent people.

Tens of thousands suffered indescribable pain and suffering. Many
died for the lack of a simple anti-asthmatic inhaler, others suffered a
demoralizing death because of the lack of pain killers, others died in
ambulances without gasoline and children were too hungry to fall asleep
at night.

As a direct result of these actions, doctors performed surgery
without gloves, dentists introduced acupuncture as the only means of
extracting teeth in the absence of anesthesia and roots, leaves and
vines suddenly became the only pharmacies in town.

Then everyone learned, that just as we now know, this vulgar
mercenary had accepted money, clothing and dinners from a south Korean
businessman in exchange for illegal congressional activities, and like
any other petty thief in town, he allowed the Cuban American National
Foundation to pump monies into his campaign and private coffers.

How many pennies did you receive Mr. Torricelli, for ending the life
prematurely of so many in Cuba?

How many blood of the hundreds of people that have died in the
Florida straits, are dripping from your murderous hands?

The Cuban people had the courage and moral values to withstand and
survive your onslaught. You, like most cowards, did not have the courage
to die standing. You cried publicly like most spoiled babies tend to do.

We knew of their meetings, we heard the sound bites, we
felt the steam gathering, we knew it was coming, but most important,
Congresswoman McKinney knew it also. Yet, like so many other brave Black
women in our long and painful history, she did not flinch, she did not
apologize, she did not rewrite her thoughts, she refused to be
"politically correct".

And then yesterday, it hit us like a brick! US Congresswoman Cynthia
McKinney was voted out of the US House of representatives, a complete
victory for the most retrograde political forces in our county and a
strong and clear message to others like her, to stay the line or else.

But this action should not be construed as a victory/loss. Different
reasons by themselves speaks volumes of where we are and what we need to
do. Four hundred years ago, she would have been whipped to death. Two
hundred years ago she would have been hanged in her town square with
hundreds of men, women and children, wearing their Sunday’s garments,
their lunch baskets and in a party atmosphere, they would have been
exceptional witnesses of the price imposed on this daring women.

In more recent times, men wrapped in sheets with burning crosses,
hiding their murderous faces, would have dragged her from her home and hung her on the nearest oak tree.

She could have been falsely accused of any crime, taken to the local
Sheriff’s office, locked up and later that night on her way to jail,
she would be killed in a hail of bullet, during her failed escape
attempt.

Or she could have been confronted by a group of barbarians like those
involved in the Rodney King, Diallo or hundreds of other similar cases,
beaten into a pulp if not killed, only to suffer further humiliation by
seeing these murderers acquitted by our partial Judicial System.

Or, she may have been caught by simply Driving While Black!
Therefore, there are no reasons for tears or despair. We have seen how
much the technique have been upgraded, refined, perfected.

And so, the Limbaughs, the Bob Graham, the Neils, the Religious Right
and brothers like George, Keyes, Williams, Condolezza, Thomas and
hundreds of others, have sound reason to celebrate their pyrrhic
victory. Their program and the system works as it should.

For centuries we have seen force impose itself over right. The
powerful, the rich, those well connected have come to believe that might
is all that is required in life. History have provided ample example to
the contrary. This should not be an exception to the rule.

Why is it, that most of these blatant abuses have been and continue
to be committed against people like ourselves? Simply because those who
have a mindset and an opinion about who and how we are, are also acutely
aware of our disunity and unwillingness to defend our rights.

They can rest easy, knowing that through tens of divisive methods
introduced into our communities -ignorance, poverty, lack of solidarity,
drugs, manipulation of some religious, academic, civic, social and
administrative leaders, we have been rendered defenseless and unwilling
to strike back.

Every year, Daytona Beach which is dubbed the Special Events Capital
of the World, organize tens of activities drawing thousands of people to
the area. Of all of them, the only one in which tons of garbage, gallons
of urine or number of illegal sexual activity are tallied, is Black
College Reunion.

Yet, many of our moral leaders in lieu of instilling proper behavior,
self respect and principles in our youths, even by encouraging them to
stay away from the yearly demeaning and humiliating experience, they
take part in the pilgrimage to City Hall, plead for some silver coins
and organize, over and over another round of embarrassment for our
students.

A comparative social analysis of the status of our people today and
during the sixties, presents a shocking negative outcome. No one except
us can reverse this tragedy. Courage, willingness to pay the price is
what is needed; not personal gain. Thanks, Thank you very much Cynthia!

Eye doctors have a host of scientific terminologies to describe
different Types and level of eye illnesses. The most serious of all of
these pathologies, "Unwillingness to See," is never part of
their findings.

As a thirteen year resident of Flagler county operating a business in
Volusia county, I have always tried to follow the economical trend,
perspective and outlook of the area. Early on, I learned that our region
did not have a strong economical support base. Tourism and special
events played an important role in our financial stability.

Although we describe ourselves as the most famous beach in the world
which many world travelers are quick to dispute, the fact remain that we
have limited natural resources to attract a constant flow of newcomers.

For someone who have lived 1/3 of his life in the United States and
2/3 in Cuba where I travel frequently to visit family members, I have
seen a country that had renounced for 40 years its condition as premier
tourist destination, slowly emerging from its ashes and within an arm’s
length of regaining its supremacy.

Numerous examples of this intentionally well kept secret appears
every day in the media as isolated, disconnected bits and pieces of
news. No local analysts, official entity or study group, has engaged in
a serious research of what this all means and how these developments may
impact our community.

We have seen the endless stream of dignitaries that travels every
week, not To the State of Florida, but to a country with which we do not
have diplomatic relations or economical ties, one where travel by US
citizens is officially banned.

What motivated the Pope, President Carter, Senators, Governors, Non
Governmental Organizations, Bishops, Congressional Delegations,
University Presidents, Health, Cultural and Sports leaders, Business
leaders, United Nations and others risking their lives and the wrath of
the right wing Cuban-American community in south Florida. Even the Mayor
of Saint Augustine and Tampa went on separate fact finding trips to
Cuba.

Our local leaders may pretend nothing is happening, they may hide
their heads in the sand or cover their ears, but that will not alter the
inevitable. Cuba is there, its economy is being re-directed towards
tourism and, although some may be quick to disregard these notions, we
are already feeling the first drafts of that developing hurricane.

Numerous reports have described a drop in the number of European and
Canadian tourists to our area. LTU, the German Airliner which had a
weekly flight to Daytona Beach, decided to cancel this stop and continue
its flight to Cuba.

Since building our beautiful airport terminal it has been on life
support. Five years ago I met with some of its leaders, to whom I
explained the importance of requesting and opening a connecting flight
to Cuba which could become a boon to our economy. Nothing happened! Los
Angeles International and Kennedy Airport did and are now reaping the
fruits, while others awaits federal approval.

The ports of Mobile, Louisiana, Gulfport and others have secured
shipping rights for agricultural products sold to Cuba under a recent
exemption of the embargo. Tampa and Jacksonville are now vying for the
same rights that should have been ours for multiple reasons.

Are more examples necessary to explain how we continue to shoot
ourselves in the foot, only because of an archaic behavior shrouded in
cold war mentality and because of threats coming out of small but
powerful south Florida community that has taken hostage our Foreign
Relations Policy decision making?

Our local, state or national leaders may choose the easy way out of
this dilemma, by accepting the status quo and by pleasing those with
whom they have contracted debt of gratitude.

History however, will record the position that each of us took on
behalf of the well being of all of those we are morally obliged to
protect. To remain oblivious to the enormous challenges and economical
hardship that thousands in our communities may be faced with may be more
than a severe symptom of myopia.

Since President George W. Bush's installation as the 43rd
President of the United States, one of his most controversial nomination
has been that of Mr. Otto Reich. Anticipating a bitter fight during
Congressional hearings and the potential leaks of a murky past,
President Bush opted to appoint Mr Reich as Undersecretary of State for
Latin America during a Congressional recess.

Many wondered why was the President willing to take this huge
political risk on behalf of someone that was opposed by the right, left
and center of the political spectrum. This decision was a clear "Than
You", to the ultra-right wing Cuban American community in south
Florida, who were instrumental in winning Florida twenty five electoral
votes and hence, the Presidency.

Since Mr. Otto Reich acceptance speech at the State Department in
which he thanked his family, supporters, his culture and even his
indicted friends for helping him reach this very high position in the
administration, little has been seen, heard or read about him.

Although some are surprised by his behavior, those who knows him best
are familiar with his secretive, conspiratorial, intriguing and
concocting personality.

The near insurmountable problems afflicting Latin America, would lead
us to believe that Mr. Reich would be out there, sensitizing, arguing,
elaborating programs, visiting the UN, OAS, Banking, NGOs and everyone
who supposedly could assist in mitigating or reversing this downward
social spiral that has engulfed the region. Instead, he is not seen or
heard of; only felt.

Is Mr. Reich in anyway dealing with the financial crisis that has
Argentina on the verge of bankrupcy? No.

Is Mr Reich in anyway involved in the power vacuum and tremendous
social unrest in Peru, after "our Man" Fujimore had to run
under the cover of night? No.

Has Mr. Reich come up with any suggestion or proposal to deal with
huge social implosion that has turned El Salvador into the most violent
country in this hemisphere? No.

Is Mr. Reich and his department working on any project directed to
deal with hunger, analphabetism and lack of healthcare for half of the
population of this region? No.

Has Mr. Reich as undersecretary for Latin America, developed any road
map that may lead to a negotiated agreement in the fifty year old civil
war in Colombia, that is decimating that country, except for his views
of bringing in more sophisticated weaponry for the military to kill more
civilians? No.

Have Mr. Reich heard anything about the despair and hopelessness in
Uruguay, Ecuador, Bolivia, Jamaica and Haiti? No.

No, evidently not. His focus, -which is congruent with his life
history of hurting those he has determined to be his enemy- has not
changed. He is fully devoted to create, organize, finance, control and
direct, the hostile forces that show up every week in the streets of
Caracas, Venezuela, wreaking havoc, unrest and the destruction of that
country’s economy.

Although every time people like Mr. Reich open their mouths, the
first expression coming out of it is, Democracy, Free Enterprise,
Freedom of Speech, Separation of Powers, etc., etc, none of which is
respected by them, when this is done by someone they dislike.

President Hugo Chavez of Venezuela, -like it or not-, has been
elected overwhelmingly in three consecutive referendum/elections by the
people of that country, who happens to be predominantly Poor and Brown.

Is the Government of Mr. Chavez perfect? I do not know. That is to be
determined by the citizens of that country! What I do know by reading
the papers, is that for the first time in recent history, the majority
of the people of that country feels that their Government is behind
them, that someone cares.

We saw it late last year when torrential rains and mudslides washed
away entire communities. The Government was there.

We saw it, when the majority of the people who never had access to
healthcare or could not afford crucial and expensive medical treatment,
the Government was there, providing it in the country or abroad.

Now, the same ones who until recently bragged about coming to Disney
World for the week-end or seeing their doctors at the Mayo Clinic, Mount
Sinai Hospital or any other of our elite healthcare provider, are now
bitterly upset because some of those citizens of Venezuela who for
decades had no hopes of similar medical care, are now able to receive
such level of medical treatment in Cuba. We saw it, when the Government
of President Chavez tried to shake up the entrenched oligarchs in the
oil industry of that country, that have dilapidated its enormous
resources, how quickly they were able to regroup, request a meeting and
being received by high level officials at the State and Defense
Departments. Coincidentally, shortly after these meetings, a failed coup
removed President Chavez from his post for 48 hours, where he was
re-installed by a massive outcry of the have nots. How do we know about
these inner workings? Simply, by reading history books, newspapers and
the evening news. There is a pattern, lack of creativity and contempt on
part of the State Department planners.

If we go back to the electoral process, election and short lived
government of Salvador Allende in Chile, what we see today in Venezuela
is a carbon copy of that conspiracy, destabilization, enlisting of the
upper class and pitting them against the poor, demonization, massive
scare tactics followed by a coup d’etat and the assassination of
thousands of citizens who supported the government.

Thirty years after, mothers are still searching for their missing
love ones in Uruguay, Argentina, Chile, where the most sophisticated
torture technique, murder and dismembering of victims, was first
instituted in this hemisphere.

Florida on the other hand, hold the world pennant for having the
largest pool of international assassins, human right violators, rapists,
dictators and thieves per square foot, coming from every Latin American
country and around the world.

A couple of weeks ago, in another Judicial travesty that typifies how
justice is selectively dispensed in this very peculiar region of the
country, General Vides Casanova and Jose Guillermo Garcia, heads of the
security forces in the 80‚€™ s, during the bloody counterinsurgency
campaign in El Salvador that took the lives of over 80,000 of its
citizens, were found guilty in civil court and ordered to pay 54.6
million dollars to their victims.

How was it possible, that both men were acquitted in previous
criminal trials?

How could an endless list of witnesses, testimonies, documents
presented even by then US Embassador, was not sufficient to convict
these murderers?

Why have Mr. Reich, those who preceeded him and those that will
follow in his post, not bring these and other well known murderers to
the International Court in The Hague and sit them next to Milosevic?

Could it be, that these and all other holders of Masters Degree, PhD
and Doctorate in torture, murder and rape coming out of the prestigious
School of the Americas in Georgia, are also immune to the Judicial
System?

Cuba alone, has a horde of old murderers in their 70 and 80 living in
Miami, West Palm Beach, New Jersey and elsewhere, with more blood
dripping from their hands, than our largest local blood bank, were
apparently assured by high ranking US officials that justice will never
be applied against them.

This tragic experience of Latin-America and the Caribbean, is what
makes most of its citizen skeptical of some concepts that are frequently
exposed by those covering up for our tormentors.

Will Mr. Reich and his operatives succeed? Who knows? Either way, it
will become an integral part of Latin America history of foreign
intervention, submission, loss of sovereignty, imposition and tutelage,
which children in these countries will eventually learn in school and
some of our ideologues, will try to explain away by depicting it as ‚€œAnti‚€Ě
whatever.

Persistent, relentless, unwavering as he is, Mr Reich have devoted
much of his time and resources, not to attempt to mitigate the suffering
in any of our 30 nations south of the Rio Grande, rather, in addition to
Venezuela, much attention has been devoted to Cuba, his most cherished
project.

Millions of dollars have been introduced illegally in the country to
buy souls and spirit, distribute printed subversive materials, provide
fax machines, cell phones and most recently, a massive distribution of
short wave radios across the country, supervised by Ms Hudlesson, head
of the US Interest Section in Cuba.

Geographically, there is no way possible to live in a country 90
miles away, and not be able to access AM radio and occasionally TV
signals. Why then the short wave radios, except for the transmission of
coded subversive messages?

Great hopes have been placed by M.r Reich and his ilk on August 5,
2002, when a massive effort have been put in place in hopes of
recreating the first and only public unrest that have taken place in
Cuba, eight years ago. The population is receiving a barrage of
incitement for them to take over the streets, vandalize building, steal
material good, destroy properties.

If this open conspiracy would succeed, will it overthrow the Cuban
Government? No, Mr. Reich and his pals knows that. What they are hoping
to accomplish while they are all safe, well fed and secure in their
air-cooled offices on these shores, is to have those in Cuba that they
have provided a few silver coins, go on the streets in Havana, confront
the Government, vandalize buildings, get their heads broken, arrested
and better yet, if this could yield a dead body. These are the elements
the yearn for, to document and present at the next Human Rights
Commission meeting, in hopes of once again, extracting a condemnation
against Cuba, for its blatant Human Rights violation.

Just as it took the world ten years to learn that all of the
grandstanding concerns, speeches and moralizing debate that then
Congressman Torricelli brought to Congress that led to the enactment of
the Torricelli Amendment, which tightened the Embargo against Cuba, that
have caused unspeakable suffering to the innocent in that country, is
nothing more than a vulgar crook, petty thief who was on the payroll of
Mafia Boss, Jorge Mas Canosa, head of the Cuban American National
Foundation.

Who can the world trust, when we see these daily parade on
"honorable" men in pinstripes suits, lobby shoes and designer
portfolio, under which is hidden the souls of vulgar thieves, invoking
their fifth amendment?

The day will come, when we will have Mr. Reich in his pin suit,
apologizing publicly for having deceived his friends, his country and
his miserable soul.

For the past three
days, the daily news have repeated ad-nauseam, the sickening spectacle
of a young, mentally challenged youngster, beaten soft by a horde of
beasts in human skin.

Hundreds of notes, books and pictures, have attempted to document our
400 years of painful history on these shores. Slavery, lynching,
segregation, poverty, abuse are some of the best known aspects of this
malaise, that fortunately with the arrival of the Camcorder on the
marketplace, the world is beginning to see what we have said all along.

Some historians have described the atrocities inflicted on our
people, since we were chased down, captured and brought through the
"door of no return" all of which continued on the slave
vessels, on the plantation and until today.

But what makes this issue so tragic, is the complicit behavior of
some of our own. If that white monster that slammed the head of that
youngster on the hood or trunk of that patrol car, and the other
ice-age, cave-man, with a cruelty that is difficult to describe, could,
totally unprovoked, punch this kid in his face; it was more despicable
to see a police of African ancestry, remain unmoved and become an
accomplice in this crime.

I first heard in the early 80’s in New York City, a theory that it
was some Blacks who actually captured fellow Blacks and sold them into
slavery to the Portuguese slave traders. Although I did not have any
hard evidence to the contrary, relying on principles, honor, loyalty, it
was too much of a heinous description to be true. Today, I am less sure.
I have seen many of today’s Blacks, capturing our brothers and sisters
and turning them over to our tormentors.

On May 20th, 2002, President George W. Bush traveled to Miami on
behalf of his stoic, right wing Cuban-American faithful constituency,
who played a crucial role in the questionable electoral process, that
enabled the Supreme Court to select Mr Bush to be the next dweller of
the White House.

M Bush immediately pulled out and read an extensive laundry list of
demands, threats, offenses and a timetable for the Cuban government to
implement his orders or, the 40 year-old embargo would remain firmly in
place. At times, his congested face, bulging neck blood vessels, profuse
salivation suggested that he was on the verge of having a vascular
accident. His bellicose and intransigent audience was thrilled by his
war mongering speech.

For Cubans on the island, this was just another example of his
prepotency, arrogance and disrespect for those he assumes to be
inferior. But that is OK.

Such attitude is fitting with his upbringing, social status, views of
life and ethnic bias. Although most people in the United States have
finally come to know that Cuba is predominantly a black country, days
after the President wildly acclaimed speech in Miami, Ms Condoleeza
Rice, a Black lady that for obvious reasons I cannot deescribe as a
sister, went from one TV station to another, to explain and support the
President decision to keep in place and strengthen the embargo against
people like herself, although she is acutely aware of the devastating
effect that this have had on the lives of hundred of thousands of
people.

She should know through her close relation with the State and
Treasury Department, that thousands of people that are now victimized,
were loyal, former employees of the United States Naval Base in
Guantanamo Cuba, who provided thousands of years of service, before,
during and after every military conflagration that this country have
been involved in.

She should also be aware, that as a result of another of our cruel
determination, most of those employees retirement benefits, have been
arbitrarily witheld by the US Treasury Department and refused payment to
beneficiaries, as long as they live in Cuba, which indirectly have
caused the break-up of tens of families, by forcing one or more of its
member, to migrate to another Caribbean island, in order to receive
payment and support financially their relatives in Cuba. Others less
fortunate are old, sick, hungry or have died bitter with their former
employer.

A few weeks before, I had returned from Cuba where I visited my dear
friends, the Knight-James described in response to an article published
by Mr. Raspberry. One of the girls in that family, a 39 year old
Biochemist, is stricken with breast cancer that has metastasized to her
brains and lungs.

The outcome is clear. This young woman that had devoted her entire
life to research and develop pharmaceuticals products in one of Cuba’s
top biotechnology laboratories, that may have mitigated the pain and
suffering of many around the world, is now helpless, on a slow
irreversible countdown.

But if it is painful to see a person in the prime of their life who
had played by the rules, slipping away day by day, it is heartbreaking
to see the desperate efforts of the family, who hits the streets every
day, asking everyone they encounter for leads, in their endless search
for an anti-nausea medication, a sedative or any other medication, that
may make the patient’s day less miserable.

Because of the continuing actions taken by different Presidents since
Eisenhower to George W. Bush, this lady and thousands others like her,
are condemned, not to live, but to die in indignity, stricken by
indescribable pain.

For me, the actions may differ but the result is the same. Some may
have captured slaves, some allowed beatings, others have condoned
actions like those described above. Either way, they have been active
participants in stifling our development and decimating our people.

It was not the Belgians who brought down Lumumba. It was Mobutu!

It was not the South African Apartheid regime that caused hundreds of
thousands of maimed and dead Angolan. It was Jonas Savimbi!

It was not an Anglo, Asian or Latin American who murdered Malcolm X.
It was people just like him!

Thousands of people that were butchered in Haiti in the 50’s and 60’s,
were not done by De Gaulle; the perpetrator was Duvalier!

So therefore, with such a shameful history, why should we be
surprised by some of "our" people speaking out against
affirmative action?

Why should we be shocked, when the most outrageous legal
determination against Black people coming out of the Supreme Court, may
not be supported by some Whites, but always by a Black person.

Although there are a deluge of right-wing Radio Talk Show hosts
around the country, the most vicious attacks on anything that may
benefit the survival of people of African ancestry in the United States,
comes from those self labeled, Black Conservative Republicans in the
Media, who in their endless quest in search of acceptance and
benevolence from the media moguls.

The daily crimes coming out of the Middle East, as a direct result of
the barbaric actions of Gen. Sharon and those who preceeded him, in
which defenseless peoples lives are shattered, maimed or murdered by
tanks, gunships, rockets and bulldozers, against youngsters armed with
stones, slingshots or an occasional AK 47, is usually presented by the
media commentators, as a response to events that took place last week,
last month or when Jesus was on earth. For the Armstrongs, Georges,
Keeyes et al, nuking the victims, the defenseless, the weak, is the
solution of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

It has been 11 years since the famous Turkey Shoot that so many have
bragged about, in which the sons of thousands of mothers of color,
retreating from the front line, with their backs to the enemy , were
mercilessly incinerated on that now infamous highway.

Israeli have demanded and are being paid for propety losses during WW
II, Japanese that were unjustly interned in camps in the US during WW II
have received compensation. Those bombed recently in Afthanistan, will
be receiving a nominal compensation for their loss. 400 years of slavery
have meant nothing to some very well placed and influential Blacks, who
adamantly opposes any discussion of compensation for our people.

It is therefore no accident, that these are the same folks that have
spent millions of tax payers dollars to buy, bribe or coerce different
governments around the world, in order to accuse, vote against and
extract a condemnation in the Human Rights Commission against Cuba, the
only country in this hemisphere, in which cases like Rodney King and
Chavis beatings, the dragging death in Texas, the four girls in Alabama
blown to bits or the monthly death of a Black youth in Cincinnatti, have
never happened in over 40 years.

If any police in Cuba would dare to slam a citizen head on the hood
of a car, no one would be guessing as we are, why he did it or what went
through his mind.

His fate would be sealed as we speak!

The ultra-right-wing creed that was ushered in during the Reagan
administration and which have reached its highest peak through the
despicable events of September 11, have created the appropiate
environment of fear, doubt, suspicion and intimidation, that have lead
most "independent" writers to jump in line and follow the
prevailing thinking.

Tens of Black social activists, clergy, journalists, academics,
humanists, that we had come to admire and revere for their clear cut and
decisive position in defense of the voiceless, the have nots, are now
rewriting their texts, constraining their vires and praying for
forgiveness, all in gross detriment of the helpless.

A group of first class, highly qualified Black Journalists recently
returned from a visit to Cuba, where Blacks are adversely impacted by
the current Dollarization and other social problems. I was in part,
dissapointed with some of the articles presented at the end of such
trip, in which issue dealing with the survival and integrity of the
Afrocuban family, were supplanted with petty issues, such as people
unwilling to speak with them, supposedly afraid of the Cuban Government
repressive measures.

Why should anyone, anywhere in the world, speak to people they do not
know, especially when those asking the questions, comes from a country,
that for real or percieved reasons, have proven aggressive intent in the
past 40 years?

Why dont any of these journalist not travel to Santiago de Cuba,
Guantanamo and other communities, and talk to those people whose
retirement benefits have been denied for the past 37 years, what life
have been for them?

Why not ask some of those, who have been forcefully separated from
parents or children, what is it like and how does it feel?

Are they really looking for people willing to talk about burning
issues or rather those, who may unwittingly become part of a
diversionist Q & A?

Would any of these very sophisticated journalists, attempt to get
people in the New York, DC or Chicago subway platform, to indulge in a
conversation with strangers? Who are the kidding?

Arent we the same people who constantly complain, that we do not know
or talk to our neighbors?

Why should we demand people to speak to strangers, when we do not
even say ‚€œGood Morning‚€Ě to others when entering a school or
workplace?

Why be upset with any journalist in Cuba, whose answer is highly
supportive of the Government, when we never question those simplistic
question that are posed by our ‚€œfree‚€Ě journalists, during
the White House, State Department or Pentagon briefings?

My fellow leader, we need to regain our courage, assume our
responsibilities and do what is right, even when such action may be
cause for retaliation from the powerful.

Had Rosa Parks, Malcolm or Martin Luther acted like some of us today,
we would still be using a different rest room.

We have lacked the courage to stand up and defend our rights. That
may explain why Blacks continue to suffer those sav

Three weeks ago, in an incredibly courageous decision,
President Carter gave the world another example of human virtues, valour
and the principles that have guided his life, when he ignored every
effort to thwart, undermine and derail his trip to Cuba by members of
the Bush administration and tens of ultra-right wing Americans and
Cuban-American groups across the country.

President Carter stated objective was to explore the possibility of
creating a bridge, extend a hand of friendship and hope to begin a
healing process. Rather than applaud and encourage such a humanitarian
endevour, especially after our own experience with the destructive
effects of hatred, these individuals whose principles are based on
causing pain, suffering and death, assembled overnight a spectacular
army of hatemongers who were ordered to extract from their sick minds,
their most immoral and wicked accusations against Cuba. Fortunately for
the world, all of their machinations backfired, many people in very
prestigious positions are now known around the world as vulgar liars,
others as conspirators and all displayed an absolute ignorance of the
history behind the 150 years old US-CUBA conflict.

For reasons that may never be known to us, the United States have
always hoped that Cuba would become another star on its flag. For better
or for worse, the Cubans have rejected this idea with the same
vehemence. It was in 1853, the same year in which Jose Marti, the father
of the Cuban nation was born, that President Pierce instructed Mr James
Buchanan, Minister to Great Britain and other American Ministers in
Europe, to draw up what was later known as the Ostend Manifesto, which
defined a plan to purchase Cuba from Spain. It also included a clause
that said, if Spain refused the sale, the United States would be
justified to seize Cuba from Spain.

Many other attempts were made to annex Cuba to the United States,
including the use of southern states plantation slave owners and foreign
mercenaries such as General Narciso Lopez, who organized two naval
expeditions to Cuba with such purpose, was captured and executed in his
second fateful attempt. These efforts had their climax in 1898, when
President McKinley sent the United States battleship Maine to the port
of Havana to protect the lives and properties of US citizens. On
February 15 1898, this battleship blew up misteriously causing the death
of over 260 members of its crew. The US immediately accused Spain of
this abominable act and Spain denied having anything to do with it.

With the complicitity of such notables as Hearst and Pulitzer, a mass
media hysteria campaign was unleashed under the battle cry of "Remember
the Maine." Spain complained and requested from the International
Maritime Organization in Holland to send a fact finding team to
establish the cause of this disaster. Prior to its arrival, the US Navy
pulled the partially sunken Maine out of the harbor to deep waters,
where it has remained sunken with the cause of the explosion, safely
guarded in its hull.

This very suspicious event -when the Spaniards were virtually
defeated by the Cuban forces- led to the first invasion of Cuba by the
United States under the leadership of General Teddy Roosevelt and his
rough riders. The simultaneous destruction of the Spanish fleet outside
the port of Santiago de Cuba by Admiral George Dewey, forced the Spanish
occupying forces to surrender at now famous San Juan Hills, bringing the
Spanish-American War to an end.

This military skirmish which lasted less than three months and 5,500
US deaths, 5000 of which was attributed to malaria and other infectious
diseases, led to what Teddy Roosevelt described as "Our best little
dirty war," which raised the United States overnight to the status
of world power, by acquiring a vast colonial empire in which 8 000,000
people lived.

In December of 1898, the United States and Spain signed what is known
as the Treaty of Paris, ending this military conflict. Cuba was not
allowed to participate. In exchange, the United States demanded and
received from Spain, Puerto Rico, the Philippines, Guam and for all
purposes Cuba.

Cuba remained occupied by the United States until May 20, 1902.
During these four years, the fully integrated Cuban Revolutionary Armed
Forces, of which, many divisions were headed by Blacks , including the
second highest ranking military officer, instilled fear in Teddy
Roosevelt segregationist mind, which lead him to dismantle this force
and create another segregated Rural Guard in which Blacks could not rise
above the rank of lieutenant and Blacks were barred from the Police
force. The political arm of the Revolutionary struggle was vanished and
replaced by a group of unprincipled sell-outs, many of whom had not
lived in Cuba for a quarter of a century and had acquired US
citizenship.

Among the worst legacy of that fatidic experience, was the Monroe
Doctrine, the imposition on the Cuban Constitution of the Platt
Amendment, which gave the US Government the right to intervene
militarily in Cuba whenever they saw fit, which they did in four
occasions. Cuba was prohibited from entering any agreement with another
country without being sanctioned by the US State Department and the
three best ports in Cuba, Bahia Honda, Cienfuegos and Guantanamo, were
forcefully "leased" for 99 years to the United States Navy.
After the so called "Independence" in which Blacks constituted
the bulk of the fighting forces and war casualties, we once again found
ourselves abandoned and segregated, leading Generals like Quintin
Banderas who led the second largest Cuban Liberation Army in Oriente, to
be given only a job sweeping the streets of Havana, while over a hundred
thousand citizens from the Canary Islands were smuggled into Cuba by
orders of Teddy Roosevelt, who said, Cuba had to be "bleached".

Contrary to Blacks that fought and died for Cuba's independence,
these newcomers were all given plots of lands and funds to develop
agriculture in western Cuba. Blacks were confined to work as laborers in
the predominantly owned United States sugar cane plantations in Oriente
and Camaguey. Frustrated with the status quo, fed up, Black leaders from
the war of independence created on or around 1910, the Independent Party
of People of Color, in order to be able to fight for their rights. The
most slanderous and vicious attacks was unleashed against the victims,
portraying them as savages, interested only in creating a "Black
Republic" like Haiti.

In 1912 and with the help of the United States Army, the Cuban Army
moved on to the province of Oriente where Blacks had their most
important strongholds, slaughtering an estimated 6000 of them. The dead
were paraded on horse backs through townships or laid in public parks
for viewing, as an example to other Blacks, what they could expect if
they did not conform. Among the endless list of social ills that was
brought to Cuba by the new masters, racisms, ignorance, lack of
healthcare, nepotism, prostitution, political corruption, squandering of
public funds, robbery, violence, gangsterism, tyrants of all walks,
murder etc., were some of the most blatant expression of what "Democracy
and Free Enterprise" meant to Cubans.

After years of bitter social struggle in Cuba, the Platt Amendment
was abolished in 1934, the United States Navy continue to occupy the
Naval Base in Guantanamo and our foreign policy was safely kept on the
4th floor of the US State Department in Washington, until the advent of
the Revolution in 1959. Thousands of Blacks and underprivileged of all
races had to pay the ultimate price in their struggle for survival and
for human dignity. Unfortunately, all successive United States
administrations, -with the sole exception of Franklin D. Roosevelt-,
meant for our people, the pillage of our resources, abuse, siding with
the victimizer and supporting every political and military tyrant, every
crook, every corrupt administrator, that bowed to and carried out the
interest of the Government of the United States.

This partial summary of the ills that have plagued the relations
between our countries, are the root cause of the social divide of this
never ending crisis. Contrary to the great effort on part of the spin
doctors and the media, to turn this tragedy into a political,
ideological confrontation, irrevocable facts prove otherwise.

On May 20, 2002, during his pilgrimage to Miami to celebrate 100
years of the "Independence" of Cuba, at a gathering with a
crowd of ultra-right-wing Cuban-American segregationists, our poorly
read, history deprived and morally compromised President, told the
people of Cuba, that the United States had not changed, that Mr Bush
will do exactly the same that Teddy Roosevelt, Platt, McKinley, Taft and
others did before him.

Simply pathetic! Cuba's History 101 will prove once again, how
misguided he is.

Although we may assume we are living in the XXI century,
an article appearing in the Miami Herald on 3/06/02 entitled "With
hard-liners in place, federal pressure on Cuba may increase"
reminds us of those edicts coming from Sir Francis Drake, Sir Henry
Morgan, Captain Kidd and many other Buccaneers and Pirates who roamed,
terrorized, robbed and slaughtered thousands of Innocent sailors and
citizens living in the Caribbean basin during the XVI, XVII, XVIII and
XIX century.

A quick review of the Cuban history tells us that the Cuban people
fought against every pirate attack to their country and the few times
they were conquered and occupied, it was only for a short period of time
before the invaders were driven back to sea.

It is therefore evident that most of these newly appointed hard-line
Cuban-Americans that have been incorporated to the Bush administration
under the brilliant leadership of Mr. Otto Reich, -the new leader of
this pack of hyenas - charged with devouring their country, never
received or flunked their HIS 101 on Cuba.

For the past 20 years, this obscure and pathetic individual has risen
through the ranks of different United States institutions, by
concocting, conspiring and being always ready to enact each and every
dirty order against his country of birth. How miserable!

Deprived of all legal arguments capable of supporting another
invasion of Cuba as it was with the Bay of Pigs, they are now busy
formulating theories in order to keep Cuba and their
self-created/managed list of terrorist nations, or by presenting Cuba as
a genuine bio-terrorist threat to the United States, for having shot
down two unarmed civilian airplanes belonging to Brothers to the Rescue
or for some assumed super cyber scientific knowledge accrued in Cuba,
that is capable of disrupting the computer network system of the most
powerful and sophisticated nation on earth.

Although all of these statements cannot hold water and they could be
dismissed as blatant stupidity, they continue to put them out over and
over, following Pavlov’s principle, in order to have them imprinted in
the minds of the Untrained, creating the psychological momentum that may
lead to the destruction of 11 million people living in Cuba.

History if full of these mass mental programming by supposedly wise
men! A few words about each of their foolishness:

Drug Certificate: Approximately 15 years ago, the US Department of State
created a department that was charged with singling out countries,
evaluating their increase or decrease in the production, manufacture,
consumption or distribution of illegal drugs, to which a yearly approval
or disapproval certificate would be issued. Interestingly enough, the
United States, the world largest consumer of illegal drugs, is not
evaluated, never censored and labeled as a Drug Addicted Nation.

Terrorist Nation: Following the same principle, an arbitrary
selection and labeling of nations around the world takes places every
year in the halls of the State Department, in which, based upon the
level of friendship, submission or the capability of infringing on said
country’s sovereignty, it maybe labeled terrorist or not. Only
countries that have been deemed unfriendly or enemies of the United
States, will ever be labeled as "Terrorists." El Salvador, the
most Violent country in this hemisphere, where the Bishop was shot dead
during mass and four American nuns were raped and murdered and added to
another 30,000 natives massacred by the security forces, are never
brought to this very prestigious tribunal.

Chile and Argentina, the leaders in this hemisphere of disappeared
persons and the creators of the most wicked torture technique ever
invented by man, by which, infants were taken away from their parents
and scattered around the world, leaving desperate parents still
searching for their offspring 30 years after.

Indonesia, the Philippines, South Korea, Australia, Pakistan or the
mother of all of them, Israel, is never mentioned, no matter how many
Palestinian children are murdered everyday in the Middle East.

As I write these notes, the voiceless of the world are appalled at
the horror of seeing the Israeli army, armed to the teeth with the most
sophisticated weaponry that has been provided them by the United States,
shooting, bombing or strafing indiscriminately the overcrowded
neighborhoods with their F-16, M-1 tanks, attack helicopters, gunships,
armored vehicles or navy vessels, slaughtering the old, women and
children., and leaving a path of destruction comparable to the worst
natural disaster.

The spectacle of seeing these monsters demolish homes with their
inhabitants inside, murdering innocent children defending their homeland
or stopping emergency vehicles at check points, leaving their occupant
to die, is the most graphic example of the bestiality that have taken
hold of that government.

It is clear criminals cannot be rehabilitated. In 1982, the world got
its first full size picture of that monster called General Ariel Sharon,
when he reduced a large portion of Lebanon to rubble. Not satisfied with
that, this butcher, under the cover of darkness, went into Sabra and
Shatilla, two refugee camps, where he slaughtered over a 1000 women,
elderly and children.

Just as the Nazi and Spanish Fascists wiped Lidice and its people off
the map in 1936, this reincarnated Hitler has demolished Jenin.

Yet, this is the honorable Prime Minister that our President receives
in the Oval Office and he has to carefully mince his words if he is to
express any disagreement with his behavior.

Our world has become a disgrace to all of us. Personally I do not
know enough to impartially and accurately judge what is taking place in
the courtroom in the Hague, where Milosevic is being tried for Crimes
Against Humanity.

What every occasional reader of the daily newspapers knows, is that
no one in good faith, could bring before this "impartial and
prestigious" tribunal the ex president of Serbia, while Sharon,
Nixon, Kissinger, Mobutu, Suharto, Pinochet, The Shah, Marcos, Van Tieu
and hundreds of others of our protegees lived the life of dignitaries.

This blatant manipulation of International institutions, their laws
and their selective enforcement which never affects our sacred cows, is
destroying the basis upon which, justice and fairness should be
dispensed around the world.

Why was it a crime when Libya was accused of blowing up PanAm 103,
leading us to send cruise missiles into that country, but nothing
happened when we blew an Iranian airliner out of the skies?

Why was the invasion of Kuwait by Iraq such a crime, that led to the
invasion and the imposition of one of the worlds most stringent embargo
for the past 10 years that have caused the death of over a million
Iraqis, but it is OK, when Israel invades Lebanon, Gaza, the West Bank
or when we do so in Panama, Grenada, Somalia, Afghanistan, Haiti, The
Dominican Republic and everywhere else?

An endless list of these contradictions would make this analysis too
extensive.

A simple review of the names and background of the ultra-right-wing
Cuban Americans that have been placed in multiple strategic positions in
the Bush II administration, suggests a massive expansion and
reinforcement of the victimization of innocent people in Latin America.

Taking advantage of a Congressional recess, Mr. Bush skillfully
nominated Herr Otto Reich as undersecretary of State for Latin America
and leader of the pack of rabid Cuban-American, charged with inflicting
increased pain and suffering on those countries who do not conform to
his doctrine.

For those unfamiliar with the underlying causes that lead the
President to nominate these individual with such a despicable background
of conspiracy, arm twisting, bribing and blackmail, suffice to remit
ourselves to the questionable Presidential election of the year 2000, in
which, the Cuban American community in south Florida, applied all of its
corrupt electoral expertise, that eventually tipped the balance that
lead Mr. Bush to the White House. Now it is pay back time!

Just a few months on the job and Herr Otto Reich fingerprint is all
over everything that is wrong in this hemisphere. Obsessed with the
delusion of portraying Cuba as a living hell, millions of dollars have
been spent in coercing the government of Argentina -on the verge of
bankruptcy-, to support a US government prepared resolution, that would
be presented by another accomplice, Uruguay.

The government of Chekoslovakia under Mr. Havel and his so called
Velvet Revolution, had spearheaded this initiative for years, until it
was labeled by most European countries as a lackey of the United States,
forcing a newer lackey to pick up the baton.

Costa Rica, El Salvador, Guatemala, and Honduras only needed a phone
call from Herr Reich for them to jump in line.

The case of Mexico was the most painful for most Latin Americans,
because that country had stood up faithfully to the principle that was
put forth by Benito Juarez, one of that country’s most prestigious
President, when he stated "The respect for the rights of others, is
peace."

Yet, Mr. Fox, the President of Mexico and his Secretary of State,
were slowly drawn into a morass that have caused severe damage to Mexico
internationally recognized independence and self determination. As a
result of this, all Latin America citizens have suffered an irreparable
loss of one of the few countries that had stood tall, defending our
sovereignty.

Herr Reich unrelenting quest to design a Latin America according to
his ultra right wing dogma, led him not only to ignore that President
Hugo Chavez of Venezuela, held one referendum and two consecutive
elections, in which he was overwhelmingly elected by 80% of that country
marginalized population.

Contrary to Herr Reich’s boss who gained access to the White House
by one vote of the Supreme Court following a lengthy dispute over a
rigged election, again, this individual opted to side with a small
fraction of the 20% of the Venezuelan population, that have squandered
the resources of one of Latin America’s richest country, leaving most
of its nationals living in abject poverty.

Concocting, conspiring as he has done most of his life, this
Machiavellian individual held numerous meetings with members of the most
rancid aristocracy and right wing military officers, to plot a coup d’etat,
that led to the overthrowing of that democratically elected government -
fortunately for the underprivileged - it lasted only 48 hours.

We are also sure, he and his ilk will keep on trying until Venezuela
is once again governed by another despotic and submissive oligarch.

Although every time these individuals open their mouths it is to
spread the gospel of democracy, free election and free enterprise, they
neither practice nor respect it contents. In Guatemala in 1954, the
popular government of General Arbenz was brutally overthrown by a CIA
hand-made thug, Coronel Castillo Armas. In 1973 we did it again, this
time against extremely popular President Salvador Allende in Chile,
which marked one of Herr Henry Kissinger greatest foreign relations coup
and a 17 years nightmare with thousands of murdered citizens.

It is increasingly clear, Herr Otto Reich will stop at nothing. This
abominable individual intentionally ignores the most basic protocolar
principles that governs the actions of people in his position.

In a daring and courageous determination and putting his personal
reputation on the line, President Jimmy Carter decided to venture into
the convulsive US-CUBA chronic antagonistic relation, hoping to create a
dialogue, a bridge that could begin to close the gap among our peoples,
that have caused so much unnecessary suffering.

Rather than supporting this humanitarian effort, this professional
conspirator who rejoices in the destruction of others, locked himself in
his office and extracted from his malignant neurons, the most heinous,
macabre accusations against Cuba in recent history, which was passed on
to his messenger, in order to thwart and compromise Mr. Carter’s good
will trip.

This individual, Mr. Bolton, said to a large congregation of right
wingers at the Heritage Foundation in DC, that Cuba had the capability
of producing and may have transferred bio-terrorism technologies to what
they label as "rogue" states.

Pretending to ignore that Cuba is the only country in this hemisphere
that have suffered at least 11 bio-terrorist attacks, all coming from or
supervised by the United States, the last of which, was caught
in-flagrante, while a US State Department light plane was spraying
virulent fungi over the province of Matanzas, in Cuba.

For someone with his rank to make such an irresponsible statement,
especially in the rarefied environment following September 11, is
tantamount of laying the groundwork for any trigger-happy individual in
a position of command, to start bombing innocent people in Cuba.

But what makes the action of this individual so cold-blooded, so
miserable, is that a few months before his department had released a
report on this issue and Cuba was not included, nor did he raise this
concern during a briefing with President Carter, prior to his trip to
Cuba.

Such unscrupulous individuals and their miserable actions, have
caused the deaths of thousands of people around the world. How much
longer must mankind endure such specimens in decision-making positions,
becomes critical.

Less than a year on the job, Herr Otto Reich have excelled and
surpassed all of the monstrosity contained in his ugly curriculum. Even
he personally admits to his truculent past, when he extended his best
wishes to his indicted friends, during his acceptance speech to the
State Department.

Sadly, the actions of this individual goes beyond him. None of his
co-workers, bosses, advisers, associates, can claim innocence in the
future. His work has been too despicable, too treacherous to have been
ignored by them!

Most people who have come in contact with Herr Reich have agreed,
that had this individual birthday been 10-20 years before his real
birthday, there is no doubt, that his rotten feelings and lack of
respect for human dignity, would have placed him at the helm of
Buchenwald, Treblinka or any other of those house of horror created by
Hitler.

It is clear such individuals have no principles, only interests.

The long list of those who have betrayed their country for a few
silver coins, continue to grow. This modern Narcisco Lopez [a 19th
century buccaneer who attacked Cuba] have imprinted his name, on that
wall of infamy in Cuban history.

In a few hours, the world will have completed its first
six months after the tragic events of September 11 in New York,
Pennsylvania and Washington.

Little or nothing more can be said, after millions of hours of
Radio/TV programs, documentaries and millions of print articles around
the world have tried in vain to understand and explain the latest
expression in this endless, irrational, and tragic human conduct.

For the victims and their families, we extend our painful respect for
their grief and sorrow. For the emergency personnel, who in a daring act
of heroism were willing to give up their lives on behalf of others; they
have left us an indelible lesson of human caring and values of what most
of us could be, and are not.

Sadly, 180 days after this despicable act took place, we have not
seen the introduction of any measure intended to uncover or explain the
root causes of such acts or worse yet, the development of a corrective,
healing procedure capable of assuring everyone, that this experience
will not repeat itself.

For those inclined to watch the Sunday morning TV political Talk
Shows, it is frightening to experience the overwhelming bellicose,
threatening, and vengeful trend that is expoused by most of the
participants.

Many people feel muzzled and refrain from expressing their doubts and
concerns, for fear of being unfairly labelled. This environment is not
conducive to an honest, in-depth, unbiased analysis of this extremely
important matter.

From a medical perspective we all know, that no matter how good a
heart medicine can be, it will never cure a back ailment.

As a guest of this country that has accepted me as one of their own
for the past 20 years, I sincerely wish the American people the very
best and the brightest future for everyone living within its border.

But we are also in need of more than wishes. We are in dire need of a
vision, of humility and acceptance. If we are ever to establish the
etiological factors of most of our present ills, we need to be critical
of our actions and to be honest and courageous to accept whatever the
outcome.

My personal life experience with the 100 year old US-Cuba senseless
diferendo, is a study case of when simple issues has been mishandled,
when arrogance have taken control of our reasoning and when I-know-best
attitude governs our action.

On this day, fifty years ago, with the encouragement, consent and
backing of the US State Department, General Fulgencio Batista and his
cronies, like all vulgar thieves, forced themselves before dawn into
Cuba’s main military garrison in Havana, deposing the
"democratically" elected President.

Corrupt as that government was with rampant gangsterism,
prostitution, drugs, plundering of public funds, nepothism, ignorance,
hopelesness and loss of the country's sovereingty; what followed
Batista's take-over was the living hell, with the murder, torture,
maiming, dissapearance and rape of thousands of the best and brightest
of that society, while he enjoyed the US complicit silence, military
support, and political backing.

A massive outcry of the population with thousands of students,
workers and women on the streets denouncing this onslaught on our
constitution, was followed by a legal impeachment proceedings that was
introduced by a then unknown Attorney, Fidel Castro, which as expected,
was ignored by the Cuban Supreme Court.

This sequence of events was followed by a failed attack on Cuba's
second largest garrison in Santiago de Cuba and the slaughter after
surrendering of most of the attackers. The surviving attackers were sent
to jail, released after 3 years and exiled in Mexico where they
regrouped, trained, invaded the country and overthrew in 1959, what
history describes as Cuba's most corrupt regime.

Thousands of Cuban citizens' ill-gotten properties were confiscated ,
hundreds of US and other foreign countries companies, - many of whom
were acquired under questionable or corrupt circumstances- were
nationalized and offered full payments with 20 year old bonds. This
program was accepted and paid for in full to Italy, England, Canada,
Germany, Holland and others, except United States owned enterprises, who
rejected compensation under orders from our State Department.

Caught up in this retaliatory environment, hundreds of get-even
measures were implemented by the State Department, the CIA and others,
directed to bring the Cuban people and its government to their knees. In
moments like these, when the Catholic church is immersed in its worst
sexual abuse scandal, I cannot avoid reflecting on one of the most
sinister plots that has been applied against that country.

In 1960, the CIA designed and Monsignor Bryan O. Walsh from the Miami
diocese created the largest mass hysteria ever in Cuba, by spreading
horrific rumors that children would be taken away from their parents and
sent to Russia. Thousands of terrified parents willingly sent over
14,000 children between 10 and 17 years of age, to places they did not
know and to people they had never seen in the United States.

Many of these children had to wait for 5 or more years to be reunited
with their families. Some never did. Many refer to mental and physical
abuse. Others who may have being sexually abused are too ashamed and
remain silent.

These uncalled for and painful examples of human frailty, which are
caused primarily by anger and poor judgement, cannot restore the lives
of those that have been destroyed. It can though, serve as a wake-up
call of things we should never repeat.

If the tragic US-Cuba experience may serve as a basis for us dealing
morerationally with these vexing social
issues affecting the world, it may well worththe
pain and suffering the Cuban people have endured.

Senility, Alzheimer and many other illnesses have
frequently been attributed to the abnormal behavior of aging
individuals; but, wathching today's evening news with all of those so
called respectable members of the Cuban exile community, who were self
appointed Presidents, Ministers, Mayors and Generals of "Free
Cuba", reduced to yelling profanities at the Mexican Government and
swearing not to eat Chilli or drink Corona beer for the next 3 months,
is the best example of a human scourge well into its rotting process.

How pathetic could this sad and mourning gathering result to other
onlookers, who knows that a river of blood flows from the murderous
hands of many in that group?

As a popular North American expression says; "What goes around,
comes around".

The pain, suffering, hunger, tears and deaths that with their support
or execution have been inflicted on tens of thousands of innocent people
in Cuba, shall haunt them the rest of their lives.

May they all remember this prophetic statement; "Rome pays its
traitors, but it despises them"!!

On February 4th and 11th 2002, the Daytona Beach
News-Journal reported Mr. William Raspberry reflections on his one week
visit to Cuba, in which he clearly expresses his bias and
preconceptions, such as "The place isn't as bleak as I'd imagined
it" or "Naturally, we were treated well when we traveled or
went sightseeing as a group." [The same column was published as Cuban
surprise on 2/4/02 in the Boston Globe].

These superficial, presumptuous and self-serving assurances of many
beltway Scholars and Cubanologists have led them to believe that one
week in a country with one of the most complex socio-historical
experience in this hemisphere suffices for them to extrapolate from a
few shallow, tourist-related, unscientific questions, and will allow
them to understand and write about the past, present and future of that
nation.

Although I have not had the pleasure of meeting Mr. Raspberry, I have
lived in the United States for 1,118 weeks and have visited
approximately 19 states and over 300 cities and towns. I would not only
refrain from purporting to be a specialist and offering solutions for
the complex issues facing the United States, I must at the same time,
question the validity of his conclusions with such a limited sampling.

Having re-read both of his articles, I am not sure if some of his
comments are an honest product of an anti-Cuba sentiment, his
unwillingness to irritate the powerful right wing Cuban forces, or a
conflict of interest with his newspaper’s philosophy.

Whichever one of these assumptions we may choose, they boil down to
some sort of cowardice.

If Mr Raspberry was unwilling to conduct and in-depth analysis of
this issue and fulfill his sacred responsibility to his readers by
reporting his findings as accurately as he could, why then did he made
this trip?

Was a dinner/sight seeing outing so important?

No serious or realistic person could possibly expect that 500 years
of slavery and its legacy that can be found all around us, could have
been eradicated in 40 years in Cuba. Why then, this selective, harsh,
overdemanding, punitive tally of how many Black Cubans are doing this as
opposed to White Cubans?

Is this a standard research procedure or one created only for Cuba?

No one, especially Blacks in Cuba, can deny or ignore the negative
effects of lingering inequalities affecting our communities since the
late 1980’s, when the Cuban Government took their first steps towards
creating a mix economy, introducing Joint Ventures, in which, the
foreign investors are responsible for managing, hiring and firing.

The Afro-Cuban community is also acutely aware of the level of
education they have achieved during the past 40 years, which has lead to
the creation of the first or second largest pool of people of African
ancestry with higher education in the world, and they are not ready and
will not allow themselves to be used as pawns, precisely by the people
or their agents who inflicted so much , pain, suffering and ignorance on
us over the past 500 years.

The root cause of this problem lies with the powerful Cuban American
right wing community in south Florida and with USAID, who have carefully
selected, trained, nurtured and supported through a network of front
charities and foundations, every group of two or more Afro-Cubans
willing to create an organization with a catchy name such as Human Right
Watch, Independent Journalist, Independent Farmers and Independent
everything else, who are all instructed to organize conferences,
seminars, wander on Universities campuses, prepare bogus reports and
spreading their venom, in hopes of creating the psychological conditions
in Cuba, for re-enacting the Kosovo, West Bank or Northern Ireland
experience.

What makes these actions so reprehensible, is that the architects and
instigators of these hate crimes, are no other than Cuba’s most racist
segment, such as US Congressman Diaz Balart, whose father and
grandfather, oversaw and ran one of Cuba’s Soweto-type township in
Banes.

The other force behind this is Congresswoman Ileana Ros-Lethinen, who
is still proud of her Santa Clara hometown, where public parks were
divided in three sections and they bragged about their different
religious order and dress code, for black girls wishing to become nuns.

When tens of thousands of Blacks were forced to live in shacks
without running water, sewer, electricity, jobs, schools or healthcare
and when we could only walk on 5th avenue in Havana or Manduley in
Santiago de Cuba on our way to and from cooking, cleaning or picking up
their trash , it was OK and no one was concerned with and busy counting
how many black waiters were there in Hotels, precisely those where Nat
King Cole and Josephine Baker were forced to use the kitchen door in
order to perform while Lucky Luciano was received as a celebrity.

No matter how well packaged, deodorized, disguised as Mother Theresa,
Ghandi or by shedding tons of Crocodile tears, we can identify these
specimens and some, who unknowingly, may serve as vehicle of these
treacherous practices.

In order to understand our progress or lack thereof, Afro-Cubans
resort to a more objective, simple, clear-cut parameter of where we are
and where we were. A case in point.

The Knight-James family in Guantanamo City, coming out of the
segregated sugar plantation of Marti, Camaguey, since their arrival in
the New World no member of this family had gone beyond 4th grade before
1950. Since, that family have produced one of Cuba’s best known actor,
an accountant, a teacher, four physicians, two construction engineers,
one electrical engineer, one dentist, two biochemist and two nurses. End
of subject.

The Afro-Cuban community sincerely appreciate the concerns and desire
to help of every honest human being. If anyone in Cuba have a clear
understanding of the effects and devastating consequences of the
embargo, that is this community, with little or no support base abroad.

People of all colors, creed and faith, honestly concerned with this
community on the verge of collapse, have devised ways of providing moral
and material support to preserve its value, culture and integrity. We
encourage everyone to join in this struggle for human dignity.

But for those solely interested in establishing ratios or percentage,
we strongly refer them to the exemplary life of Mariana Grajales, -the
unofficial mother of the Cuban nation- and her son, General Antonio
Maceo, the greatest son of Africa ever to live in that country, both of
whom, did not cave in to the rigors of life, but rather instilled in us
their principles and were willing to die with respect and dignity!

As a 63 year old Afro-Cuban and on behalf of another 5-6 million living in
Cuba, I wish to express my heartfelt gratitude to Mr Sidney Royal for his
couraous stance living in violent-prone Miami: he is still willing to denounce the
disgraceful behaviour of Mr Frank Calzon. [Executive Director of the Center
for a Free Cuba].

Acting as if the Calzon family came from the moon and not out of Cuba, one of
the most racist country in this hemisphere, where blacks were forced to live
in thatched shacks without electricity, running water, sewer, jobs, schools,
healthcare, separate aisles in public parks, different catholic religious
order for black nuns, and thousands of unnecessary deaths due to preventible
diseases.

As all hired pen, Mr Calzon outright lies may sit well in Iowa, Nebraska or
south Dakota, but not in Miami, where the Afro-American community knows that
the worst hurricane ever to hit our state was that one associated with 1959.

On Friday, December 21, 2001, the media reported in its
Obituary, an apparently innocuous information about the recent death of
Monsignor Bryan O. Walsh in Miami, who led "Operation Peter
Pan", which brought 14,000 children out of Fidel Castro's Cuba.

The manner in which this news was formulated would lead most readers
to give Monsignor Walsh a standing ovation. The world knows otherwise!

As a father, grandfather and an exceptional witness of the most
despicable act that the United States has applied against Cuba in its
never ending 40 year war of attrition, this may well be the most
revolting of all of them.

As early as May 1959, five months after the ousting of the murderous
Government of Batista from Cuba, the first counterrevolutionary group
was formed under the auspices of the CIA, which was headed by Dr. Rafael
Diaz Balart, father of our very vocal, US Congressman Diaz Balart,
leader of the pack of the anti-Cuba crusade.

In order to support the war of terror that they were about to
unleash, Monsignor Bryan Walsh of the Miami Diocese was recruited and
given the assignment of creating the greatest mass hysteria in the
history of Cuba, by alleging that the Cuban Government was about to take
away the children from their parents, send them off to Russia and in
fact, some were already returning to Cuba as canned meat.

Unbelievable as it may sound today, we need to keep this in the
context of a society where for years the mass media had created and
imprinted in the minds of its citizenry all the ingredients that made
this outlandish statement believeable.

Additionally, the country was surrounded by a host of hostile radio
stations such as WGBY on the United States Naval Base in Guantanamo, the
Voice of America now transmitting in Spanish, Radio Swam and others,
constantly beaming the same message. White Papers, Pastoral Letters,
Sermons and Special Masses became a daily or weekly activity of the
Catholic Church and 4 or 5 other fringe religious groups, all determined
to ratify such fallacies.

By 1960, parents were running around like crazy, not knowing what to
do. Then suddenly, like a miracle, help was on its way, and "Waiver
Visas" began to be handed out through the Catholic Church and other
underground groups, primarily to white, Middle to Upper Class children
between the ages of 10 and 17.

How paranoid or deranged had we made those parents, who were now
willing to put their children on an airplane and send them off to
distant places they have never been and to people they did not know?

Hundreds of these children have later referred to mental, physical
and sexual abuse. Hundreds had to wait 5, 6, or more years to be
reunited with their parents. Many never did!

And now, in order to white-wash and ignore this monstrous human
tragedy, U. S. Secretary of Housing and Urban Development, Mr. Mel
Martinez, and Mr. Joe Carollo, former Mayor of the City of Miami, are
both highlighted as outstanding examples of this program, without
uttering a word of sorrow or condolences for the victims.

Psychiatrists, Ppychologists and others engaged in analyzing deranged
human behaviour have long argued that the abused exhibit an increased
tendency to be an abuser. That may explain Mayor Carollo's propensity to
beat up his wife and Mr. Martinez staunch support for the attempted
kidnapping of 6 year old Elian Gonzalez.

And yet some wonder, how is it possible that one set of Cubans thinks
and feels like Mr. Martinez and others like myself. The answer is
simple.

While our forefathers were ripped away from their homeland, tied to
the hull of a slave boat, dispersed around the world and enslaved for
400 years, the forefathers of these individuals were either steering
those slave boats, running plantations, or segregating us until today.

Not even now, when people of all other ethnic groups have received
apologies or compensation for abuses inflicted on them, they and their
"sell out" that they have strategically placed in key
positions, feels and have expressed publicly, that we do not need an
apology or compensation.

No political or social argument can ever excuse these monsters, who
now, as "Born Again" defenders of people of African Ancestry,
are desperately trying to wash their sins in that septic tank called
Human Rights.

If anyone in the Catholic order have ever earned the right to be
excomulgated and directed in the opposite direction of Heaven, Monsignor
Bryan O. Walsh, a vulgar kidnapper, have fulfilled all the
prerrequisites.

May someone, somewhere, someday, be able to forgive his soul!

Alberto N. Jones
December 25th, 2001

1. 'Pedro
Pan' priest dies; Walsh guided Cuban kids 12/21/01 Miami
Herald: "Guided" them very well! Monsignor Bryan Walsh,
was responsible for the kidnapping of 14,000 children on the hysterical
pretext that they they were going to be sent to Russia and turned into
canned meat. That this passes for a good deed shows how hard it is for
Americans to understand right from wrong and just who is a terrorist.

4. Elian
not the first Cuban child kidnapped Green Left Weekly: Feb
2000 article gives some Pedro Pan history. The author, Deborah Shnookal,
is also the author of a book, Operation Pedro Pan:The Exodus of the
Cuban Children (1960-62) -- A case study in Cold War psychological
warfare.

For a parallel story, see the abuse of 10,000
British children sent to Australia for servitude with the Catholic
organization, Christian Brothers Academy: The
Lost Children, CBS News, 2/3/02.